…..a problem with Kant's and similar views. (…) it seems that the 'ordered world' of experience arises from the 'interaction' between the mind and 'the mind-independent reality', which is never truly presented 'as it is itself' to the mind. — boundless

Not too sure what form the problem is supposed as having, but at first glance:
So if the ordered world of experience arises from the interaction between the mind and representations of the external domain….the problem disappears?

It seems in fact to assume that there is, indeed, a mind-independent reality which is then 'represented' by the cognitive faculties of the mind. — boundless

That which is mind-independent cannot be represented. With respect to Kant’s view alone, reality is not mind-independent, by definition hence by methodological necessity, the content of which remains represented not by the cognitive faculties, but sensibility. From which follows the ordered world of experience arises from that which is always truly presented to the mind, and from that, appearances to the senses are not merely assumed, but given.

The 'represented' world of exprience is thus like an interface (…) and for the knowing subject it is impossible to know what the world is like independent from the mental categories. — boundless

From whence, then, does the interface arise? If the represented world of experience is all with which the human intellect in general has to do, there isn’t anything with which to interface externally, interface here taken to indicate an empirical relation. And if the only possible means for human knowledge is the system by which a human knows anything, the interface takes on the implication of merely that relation of that which is known and that which isn’t, which is already given from the logical principle of complementarity. Does the interface between that out there, and that in here, inform of anything, when everything is, for all intents and purposes, in here?

….to the strict epistemic idealist, I would ask: how do you explain the 'arising' of the 'empirical/experienced world' without positing an intelligible mind-independent reality…. — boundless

If by epistemic idealist is meant that purely subjective position holding with a representational system of human intelligence, however speculative such system may be, in which all empirical knowledge of things is predicated on, and thereby resides within, that system alone, he must at the same time posit that to which those representations, hence his knowledge, relates, which cannot be contained within, therefore must be external to, the system itself.

Empirical/experienced world, and the variated iterations thereof, is a conceptual misnomer, though, I must say, a rather conventional way of speaking, not fully integrating the development of the concepts involved. That, and the notion of “intelligibility of the world”. Which sorta serves to justify why the good philosophy books are so damn long and arduously wordy.

Anyway….just me. Rambling.

More or less. My point is that in order to even think to follow and catch a ball, you need some interpretative mental faculties. Same goes for some basic innate concepts (like a basic notion of 'thing', 'change' and so on). — boundless

Alright, sure. I just think those things come from a brain that has evolved able to infer abstract structure in the information it gets from the environment. There is a kind of pluralism in the sense that depending on how the brain relates to the environment, different information appears on its sensory boundary and so different structures are inferred. Like say if you are looking at an object from different angles and it looks different.

Well, yes, but my question is how to understand why the physical world is intelligible in the first place. A physcialist might well aswer as you do. It is just a 'brute fact'. But IMO it would be ironic. The very intelligibility of the world is left unexplained (and perhaps unexplainable). — boundless

For the world to intelligible imo just means that it has structure. To say the world has structureis just to say something like: there is stuff in it and it is different in different places, which is kind of trivial.

that is, we get incredibly good predictions in the absence of an intelligible structure of reality. Weird. — boundless

Yes, this doesn't make sense to me. If we can fit coherent models to reality, even if they turn out to be erroneous after some limit, it would suggest they capture some subset of the intelligible structure (at the very least intelligible empirical structure) of reality. This just happens to be embedded in a model whose wider structure is erroneous.

Imagine 'how the world looks like' without any kind of sensations. — boundless

There were no sensations in the universe before life came into being.

:
Feeling, thought, and volition (any groups under which we class psychical phenomena) are all the material of existence, and there is no other material, actual or even possible... — Berkeley

This seems to entail abandoning our innate sense of a world external to ourselves. If one really believed this, why wouldn't one stop interacting with the world we're allegedly imagining? Why eat? Why work?

Try to discover any sense in which you can still continue to speak of it, when all perception and feeling have been removed; or point out any fragment of its matter, any aspect of its being, which is not derived from and is not still relative to this source. When the experiment is made strictly, I can myself conceive of nothing else than the experienced. Anything, in no sense felt or perceived, becomes to me quite unmeaning. — Berkeley

I can infer something reasonable from this: making sense of the world will necessarily be in our own subjective terms. Our perceptions entail only a reflection of reality, not reality itself. It is a perspective, but a perspective on what is actually there. Understanding can only be from our perspective (it's like a non-verbal language - a set of concepts tied directly to our perceptions), but that doesn't mean it's a false understanding. And it has proven to be productive

physicalism seems content to claim that intelligibility (which you assume here) is just a 'brute fact' that doesn't need to be explained. I disagree. So, for me, it isn't enough. — boundless

It is a necessary fact that survival entails successful interaction with the external world. Our species happened to develop abstract reasoning, which provided a "language" for making sense of the world- a useful adaptation. There may very well be aspects of the world that are not intelligible to us. Quantum mechanics is not entirely intelligible -we have to make some mental leaps to accept it. If there's something deeper, it could worse.

do you believe that universals/structure can be considered 'physical' because their 'existence' is immanent in the physical world? — boundless

Exactly. We can consider a universal by employing the way of abstraction: consider multiple objects with a property in common, and mentally subtract the non-common features. This abstraction is a mental "object", not the universal itself.

I do not deny the existence of a 'physical world', independent from our minds (i.e. which is not just mental content), but IMO it isn't ontologically fundamental.

What IS ontologically fundamental? Isn't it a brute fact? Even if it is mathematical, it's a brute fact that it's mathematical, and a brute fact as to the specific mathematical system that happens to exist.

the ontological status of math/logic is actually important in this discussion.

A physicalist perspective is that we abstract mathematical relations which exist immanently. There are logical relations between the pseudo-objects (abstractions) in mathematics, and logic itself is nothing more than semantics.

I don't think you are an anti-realist about universals....do you believe that universals/structure can be considered 'physical' because their 'existence' is immanent in the physical world?

Correct on both points.

to the strict epistemic idealist, I would ask: how do you explain the 'arising' of the 'empirical/experienced world' without positing an intelligible mind-independent reality (let's consider the minds here as those of sentient beings not some 'higher' Mind, which would in fact be, in a certain sense, a mind-indepedent reality, at least from the epistemic idealist point of view)? — boundless

My answer would be that the in-itself—the world as it is entirely apart from any relation to an observer—cannot be said to be non-existent. Of course something is, independently of our perception of it. But precisely insofar as it is independent of any possible relation to perception or thought, it is beyond all predication - hence, also, not really 'something'! Nothing can truthfully be said of it—not that it is, nor that it is not, for even non-existence is itself a conceptual construction.

In this sense, and somewhat in line with certain strands of Buddhist philosophy, the in-itself is neither existent nor non-existent. Any claim otherwise would overstep what can be justifiably said, since even the concept of "existing" or "not existing" already presupposes a frame of conceptual reference that cannot be meaningfully applied to what is, by definition, outside such reference. (The proper attitude is something like 'shuddup already' ;-) )

Feeling, thought, and volition (any groups under which we class psychical phenomena) are all the material of existence, and there is no other material, actual or even possible...
— Berkeley

This seems to entail abandoning our innate sense of a world external to ourselves. If one really believed this, why wouldn't one stop interacting with the world we're allegedly imagining? Why eat? Why work? ....Our perceptions entail only a reflection of reality, not reality itself. It is a perspective, but a perspective on what is actually there. — Relativist

The passage that @Boundless quoted was from F H Bradley, not George Berkeley, although as he said, they converge on a similar form of idealism. And as the thread is about the possibility of a mind-independent reality, Bradley is quite relevant. He was highly influential in his lifetime, and had considerable impact on a young Bertrand Russell. However, Russell later abandoned Bradley's 'absolute idealism' for reasons very like your own.

Bradley and Berkeley aside, I will take issue with what you say is 'actually there'. In line with what I've said above, your 'actually there' remains a conceptual construction or a sign. But physicalist philosophy overlooks this by regarding the 'testimony of sense' as indubitable. As another well-known idealist puts it:

All that is objective, extended, active — that is to say, all that is material — is regarded by materialism as affording so solid a basis for its explanation, that a reduction of everything to this can leave nothing to be desired (especially if in ultimate analysis this reduction should resolve itself into action and reaction). But ...all this is given indirectly and in the highest degree determined, and is therefore merely a relatively present object, for it has passed through the machinery and manufactory of the brain, and has thus come under the forms of space, time and causality, by means of which it is first presented to us as extended in space and...active in time. From such an indirectly given object, materialism seeks to explain what is immediately given, the idea (in which alone the object that materialism starts with exists), and finally even the will from which all those fundamental forces, that manifest themselves, under the guidance of causes, and therefore according to law, are in truth to be explained. To the assertion that thought is a modification of matter we may always, with equal right, oppose the contrary assertion that all matter is merely the modification of the knowing subject, as its idea. — Arthur Schopenhauer, World as Will and Representation

You might protest that the object is not an idea, but an actuality. But this overlooks, or rather, takes for granted, the fact that any object you refer to is identified as such, named and thereby brought into the domain of name and form, otherwise it would not constitute an object. You and I both know what it is - look, it's a hammer. It's a chair. It's a qasar. It's a neuron - but the point stands.

(By the way, the natural reaction to the claim that objects are 'ideas', is to say, 'the object is external to us, but the idea is within the mind'. However, this 'thought-construction' takes place in a context already provided by the mind - that of self-and-world, internal and external. To understand that requires a kind of meta-cognitive insight into the sense in which this too is a form of what Schopenhauer calls 'vorstellung' - a mental construct.)

What IS ontologically fundamental? Isn't it a brute fact? Even if it is mathematical, it's a brute fact that it's mathematical, and a brute fact as to the specific mathematical system that happens to exist. — Relativist

The appeal to 'brute fact' seems convenient but is ultimately uninformative. Calling something a brute fact doesn’t explain it—it just brings inquiry to a halt. It’s a way of saying "that’s just how it is", which might end a conversation but leaves the real philosophical analysis undone.

Likewise, reducing mathematics to abstraction and logic to "nothing more than semantics" risks psychologizing both, as if they are just artifacts of human mental or linguistic activity. But this is self-defeating, since the very theories that physicalism relies on—especially in physics—are themselves mathematically formulated. If mathematics is nothing more than a human abstraction, then so are the mathematical models that physicalism depends on to describe reality. That undermines (or rather subjectivises) the very objectivity that physicalism claims.

I think the mistake that physicalism makes, is to regard objects as mind-independent. That's the whole problem in a nutshell. But atomic physics itself has seriously questioned whether such a mind-independent object will ever be found. After all, the 'standard model' is just that: a model! And where does that model exist, if not in the abstract domain that only mathematical physics can explore? The mathematical structures that describe particles and fields aren’t themselves particles or fields; they exist in an ideal or formal realm that that we can only access through symbolic reasoning.

This has long been recognized as a serious question, famously raised by Eugene Wigner as "the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences." Why should abstract mathematical structures map so well onto physical reality, if they are just inventions of human thought? The fact that they do suggests discovery, not mere invention or mental construction. There have been innummerable such discoveries in the recent history of science. ('Einstein Proved Right Again'.)

So the question isn’t just whether there is a "brute fact" about the nature of reality, but whether mathematical and logical structures themselves are ontologically prior —the sense in which they are real in a sense beyond the descriptive. That’s a much deeper and more interesting question.

Relativist: "Our perceptions entail only a reflection of reality, not reality itself. It is a perspective, but a perspective on what is actually there."
Bradley and Berkeley aside, I will take issue with what you say is 'actually there'. In line with what I've said above, your 'actually there' remains a conceptual construction or a sign. But physicalist philosophy overlooks this by regarding the 'testimony of sense' as indubitable. — Wayfarer

The statement of my you refer to was discussing a physicalist point of view, and acknowledging that perceptions are not identical to reality (what is actually there). My point being that, although I do not buy into idealism, I do not insist we perceive reality as it is.

It's not clear to me what Schopenhauer is addressing here:

"From such an indirectly given object, materialism seeks to explain what is immediately given, the idea (in which alone the object that materialism starts with exists), and finally even the will from which all those fundamental forces, that manifest themselves, under the guidance of causes, and therefore according to law, are in truth to be explained. To the assertion that thought is a modification of matter we may always, with equal right, oppose the contrary assertion that all matter is merely the modification of the knowing subject, as its idea."
He seems to be criticizing physicalism's inadequate account ofthoughts and ideas Is that it?

You might protest that the object is not an idea, but an actuality. But this overlooks, or rather, takes for granted, the fact that any object you refer to is identified as such, named and thereby brought into the domain of name and form, otherwise it would not constitute an object. You and I both know what it is - look, it's a hammer. It's a chair. It's a qasar. It's a neuron - but the point stands. — Wayfarer

My objection is more basic: what is the big picture of reality under this theory? Does it actually account for anything? Does it just assume it's futile to consider a broad metaphysical theory? Physicalism offers an explanation for almost everything. Does idealism explain ANYTHING?

But once you say 2+2=4 you are now in into the realm of mathematics where different rules apply and 2+2=4 is not an absolute truth. Rather, 2+2=4 is only true within specific mathematical systems - most commonly Peano Arithmetic - where you start of with certain axioms and rules and then you can derive 2+2=4. — EricH

Peano Arithmetic seems to concern only natural numbers, and is not closed under a lot of operations. A lot more axioms are needed to move into extensions to natural numbers, and it still remains difficult to find a set of numbers which is closed under all operations. Complex numbers are not up to the task, but Octionians are. Problem with Octonians is that so many of the operations lack commutative, associative, and transitive properties.

What obligates a universe to run under these axioms? Perhaps I can answer that by the same reason that our universe is so well tuned: You don't get observers if the rules are otherwise.

My problem with this is that there are also philosophical models that do not make any 'stance' about whether 'the physical' or 'the mental' is fundamental. — boundless

Most in fact, naturalism being one of them. Pretty much anything except materialism and idealism respectively.

Some phenomenological approach conceptualize this by saying that the 'first-person perspective' (the 'mental') and the 'third-person perspective' (the 'physical') are not reducible to one another

I am aware of this wording, but have never got it. How can a perspective not be first person by the thing having the perspective, even if it's a tree or a radio or whatever? Sure, it might not build a little internal model of the outside world or other similarities with the way we do it, but it's still first person.

An internet intelligence might have thousands of points of view corresponding to widespread input devices. That's not a single perspective (just like our own isn't), but again, it's still first person.

but you need to take both into account even if it is not possible to make a synthesis of them (think about 'complementarity' in QM). To none of them, however, an ontological status is actually granted. Both are ultimately 'point of views'.
How would you classify this? It is obviously not 'dualistic' in the sense that an ontologiy is not even presumed.

I kind of lost track of the question. Classify the ontology of the first and third person ways of describing what might be classified as an observer?

Sort of agree. They are not 'parts' that we are composed of. That would be a 'materialistic' interpretation of principles and laws. But even saying that they are 'means' is wrong IMO. — boundless

Me too. I struggled to find a more appropriate word and failed.

I would say that they 'manifest' in the way physical stuff interact. If they weren't 'there', there would be no 'way' in which physical stuff would interact.

OK, I can go with that, but it implies that 'stuff' is primary, interaction supervenes on that, and laws manifest from that interaction. I think interaction should be more primary, and only by interaction do the 'things' become meaningful. Where the 'laws' fit into that hierarchy is sketchy.

I am not even sure that it even makes sense to think about an 'unstructured reality'. So, probably, this implies that, after all, intelligibility is something essential to anything real.

Depending on one's definition of being real, I don't agree here. A mind-independent definition of reality doesn't rely on describability. By other definitions, it does of course.

If one posits that, say, the fundamental reality is, say, the Platonic 'world of Forms' it's possible to explain why the physical world presents to us regularities. They are, so to speak, 'moving images' of the Forms or 'manifestations' of them. And physical things are instantiations of the forms.
But materialism would simply assume that there is an 'order' in the world without having a conceptual category that explains it. Is being intelligible intrinsic/essential to be material? Is the 'order' material? — boundless

Sounds legit. All of it.

Assuming some kind of reality of mathematica and logical principles to make a case for the intelligibility of physical reality.

OK, got that.

Yes, I completely agree with it. — Wayfarer

Good. You're not treating time differently than space. Being consistent goes a long way to being valid.

You said you haven't read up on Kant, but he says something like this: space and time are not derived from experience (a posteriori), nor are they concepts, but rather they are the necessary, a priori conditions of experience. In other words, we cannot perceive or imagine anything without situating it in space and time.

I can think of counterexamples to that. Certain forms of BiV or simulation reality are not necessarily situated in an actual space that is being perceived. Sure, there is an embedded space and/or time, but that's not the space/time perceived. It might have say a different number of dimensions than the number presented to one's experience.

You asked a rhetorical question in the thread title - 'Does anybody support a mind-independent reailty' - from what I'm seeing, the answer would be that you do. Would that be right?

First of all, I still think my title is poorly worded. I'm not asking if the apple would still be there if you were not. I'm more asking if the line between that which exists and that which doesn't is or is not drawn in some oberver independent way.

As for my stance on the first question, absent a me to observe the apple, it wouldn't exist relative to me, but it would still exist relative to the basket in which it sits.
As for where I draw my lines, it is on causal bounds: Things (events) that have a causal impact on X vs everything else. Yes, all pretty mind independent, but few choose definitions like that. The definition is a sort of relational version of the Eleatic principle.

He seems to be criticizing physicalism's inadequate account of thoughts and ideas Is that it? — Relativist

No. He's saying - and he says it very clearly - that the world, objects, and things, ARE ideas. Look at it from the perspective of cognitive science: cognitive sciences knows that what we instintively understand as the external world is generated by the h.sapiens brain. Materialism as a philosophy, fails to take this into account, or ignores it. Whatever presents itself to our senses 'has passed through the machinery and manufactory of the brain, and has thus come under the forms of space, time and causality, by means of which it is first presented to us as extended in space and...active in time.' Space and time likewise are foundational neurological senses which allow us to orient ourselves and move around. They are real, but they also are built on an ineliminably (can't be eliminated) subjective basis. Physicalism attributes to the objects of perception an inherent reality which they don't possess. Hence, Schopenhauer's saying 'materialism is the philosophy of the subject who forgets herself.'

Does idealism explain ANYTHING? — Relativist

it explains why physicalism is based on false premisses.

As for my stance on the first question, absent a me to observe the apple, it wouldn't exist relative to me, but it would still exist relative to the basket in which it sits. — noAxioms

So you believe!

The definition is a sort of relational version of the Eleatic principle. — noAxioms

Hey, thanks for clearing that up. :chin:

The appeal to 'brute fact' seems convenient but is ultimately uninformative. — Wayfarer

Appeal? It's an inference. I believe the past is finite, which implies an initial state which exists by brute fact. Likewise, I believe there is a "bottom layer" of reality, not composed of anything simpler. Whatever it may be, it exists by brute fact. I don't see how any comprehensive metaphysics can avoid brute facts (and labeling it "necessary doesn't remove bruteness").

No. He's saying - and he says it very clearly - that the world, objects, and things, ARE ideas. — Wayfarer

That sounds absurd to me. Does he provide some epistemological assumption for this claim?

Look at it from the perspective of cognitive science: cognitive sciences knows that what we instintively understand as the external world is generated by the h.sapiens brain. — Wayfarer

Agreed.

Materialism as a philosophy, fails to take this into account, or ignores it.

\
I disagree. Rather, physicalism's account of mental activity is deficient. Even it if justifies rejecting physicalism, it doesn't justify rejecting our innate basic beliefs that there is an external world that we perceive, and interact with. We naturally belief our perceptions of the world are true. What defeats these beliefs?

Whatever presents itself to our senses 'has passed through the machinery and manufactory of the brain, and has thus come under the forms of space, time and causality, by means of which it is first presented to us as extended in space and...active in time.' Space and time likewise are foundational neurological senses which allow us to orient ourselves and move around. They are real, but they also are built on an ineliminably (can't be eliminated) subjective basis.

I don't see a problem. Making sense of the world is necessarily going to be rooted in our nature. If bats were capable of abstract reasoning, the explanations they would generate would be rooted in their unique nature. These are perspectives, not falsehoods.

Physicalism attributes to the objects of perception an inherent reality which they don't possess.

Set physicalism aside, and focus specifically on what we perceive in the world. We naturally believe what perceive is real, including all the details delivered by our senses (the colors, smells, sounds, shapes, etc). Certainly the qualia are subjective, but they provide true information. A turd's stench is not an objective property of a turd, but it gives the true information that the turd is a turd, not a flower or food.

Hence, Schopenhauer's saying 'materialism is the philosophy of the subject who forgets herself.'

Materialism is an account of the world that is consistent with our perceptions and with science. What is his account of the world? How does its usefulness compare? Criticizing the deficiencies of materialism is not a justification for an alternative. It's useful only if we're seeking a "best explanation", in which case we need a real alternative to compare it to. If it's starting point is extreme skepticism about the external world, I see no utility to it.

Look at it from the perspective of cognitive science: cognitive sciences knows that what we instintively understand as the external world is generated by the h.sapiens brain.
— Wayfarer

Agreed.

Materialism as a philosophy, fails to take this into account, or ignores it - Wayfarer

I disagree. Rather, physicalism's account of mental activity is deficient. Even it if justifies rejecting physicalism, it doesn't justify rejecting our innate basic beliefs that there is an external world that we perceive, and interact with. We naturally belief our perceptions of the world are true. What defeats these beliefs? — Relativist

You say that even if physicalism’s account of mental activity is deficient, that doesn’t defeat our basic belief in an external world that we perceive and interact with. But I think that warrants closer scrutiny, as the question at hand is the sense in which that world is 'mind-independent'.

Cognitive science shows that what we experience as 'the world' is not the world as such - as it is in itself, you might say - but a world-model generated by our perceptual and cognitive processes. So what we take to be "the external world" is already shaped through our cognitive apparatus. This suggests that our belief in the world’s externality is determined by how we are conditioned, biologically, culturally and socially, to model and interpret experience, rather than by direct perception of a mind-independent domain.

I say that part of this world-model is 'the self in the world'. We see ourselves as individual subjects in a domain of other subjects, as well as impersonal objects and forces. But that too is a model, indeed the dominant model in scientific-secular culture. But philosophy demands us to look deeper, to understand the way that even such an obvious and common-sense view is itself a construct.

One does not need to deny the empirical facts of science (indeed, the originator of this kind of philosophy, Immanuel Kant, did not) . But the philosophical question is about the nature of existence, of reality as lived - not the composition and activities of those impersonal objects and forces which science takes as the ground of its analysis. We ourselves are more than objects in it - we are subjects, agents, whose actions and decisions are of fundamental importance. And through critical self-awareness, we can come to understand that world we experience is already a mediated construction, not an unfiltered or unvarnished encounter with reality in itself. Which is what physicialism doesn’t see. Scientism is the belief that the human being can be understood solely through the perspective of the physical and chemical sciences, which is inherently 'objectifiying':

What does modern science have to say about the nature of man? There are, of course, all sorts of disagreements and divergencies in the views of individual scientists. But I think it is true to say that one view is steadily gaining ground, so that it bids fair to become established scientific doctrine. This is the view that we can give a complete account of man in purely physico-chemical terms. — D M Armstrong, The Nature of Mind

That is, as an object.

This doesn’t amount to denying the reality of a domain beyond that 'constructed' experience, but it does challenge the pre-critical realism with which it is being understood. Of course we can and do study objects and forces impersonally, and we can and do study human beings objectively, through medicine, anatomy, physiology etc, but being aware of the limitations of objectivity is part of what philosophy brings to the table.

Materialism is an account of the world that is consistent with our perceptions and with science. What is his account of the world? How does its usefulness compare? Criticizing the deficiencies of materialism is not a justification for an alternative. — Relativist

But we’re not talking about science. We’re discussing philosophy, which is crucially concerned with the human condition, with questions of meaning. Schopenhauer, as it happens, was well informed about the science of his day (as was Kant). But there’s no conflict between idealism and science: the conflict is between idealism and scientific materialism, which mistakes the empirical and contingent for a kind of philosophical absolute.

Materialism needs to to learn to look at its spectacles, not just through them.

That sounds absurd to me. Does he provide some epistemological assumption for this claim? — Relativist

If I may, with apologies to , the gist of the argument resides in the fact nothing comes to the human intellect already named, and from that comes the notion that things become named in accordance with some initial idea in that mind determining what it will be. Classic cases-in-point….quarks, and Slinkies. Donut holes.

The fact kids are informed of names of things from rote instruction, or the familiarity with things otherwise through indirect experience of them as is the case with Everydayman in general, is beside the point.

While it seems superfluous to assert we must first learn what we know, centering on the known disguises the necessarily antecedent priority of how knowledge is possible. Kant set the stage for speculative epistemological metaphysics, which theorizes on how knowledge is possible, Schopenhauer the soonest worthy expansion….or criticism…. of it.

Both these philosophical pioneers agreed on this major premise: that which is first given to the senses is undetermined. From there, it’s off to the races…..

nothing comes to the human intellect already named...these philosophical pioneers agreed on this major premise: that which is first given to the senses is undetermined. — Mww

I agree language helps shape how we think about the world, I think there's something more basic in us that is pre-verbal. No one has to be taught there's an external world, and that there are individual objects. The words have to become attached to perceptions. Animals learn things without ever attaching words. Gorillas and chimps can learn to attach words (sign language) to types of things.

what we take to be "the external world" is already shaped through our cognitive apparatus. — Wayfarer

I agree. I've referred to this as innate, basic beliefs that are nonverbal. Arguably, these beliefs are PROPERLY basic: a product of the world as it is. If we are the natural product of the world, then of course it would produce beings with cognitive structures that enable successful interaction - so they would at least be FUNCTIONALLY accurate. The more closely this internal image of the world is to the actual world, the more flexible and adaptable the animal. When we compare ourselves to other animals, that's exactly what we see.

I am borrowing the concept of a PROPERLY basic belief from Alvan Plantinga, who uses the term to argue that theism is rational. He suggests that a God who wants to have beings that know him would instill an innate sensus divinitatus into them, by which they would know him and recognize what is true about him. This innate knowledge of God is basic (not learned), and it is basic "in the proper way" - produced by means that would be expected to produce it. This is not a proof of God (that would be circular reasoning), but rather a defense of the reasonableness of theism - that is contingent on there being such a God. If there is such a God, it means it's perfectly rational to believe in him. If there is not such a God, then belief in God is irrational (the alleged sensus divinitatus doesn't actually exist).

Analagously, if there is a world that produces living beings through natural processes, those beings would require a functionally accurate means of interacting with it - and the MORE accurate the internal picture of that world, the more flexible and adaptable the life forms. Similarly to Plantinga, this is not a proof, but it's a consistent and coherent theory that is rational to believe, even though it might be false.

And if I'm right that this is a basic belief (whether PROPER or not), then it's rational to maintain it unless defeated, and irrational to deny based on the mere possibility that it is false. This is irrespective of physicalism, per se.

One does not need to deny the empirical facts of science (indeed, the originator of this kind of philosophy, Immanuel Kant, did not) . But the philosophical question is about the nature of existence, of reality as lived - not the composition and activities of those impersonal objects and forces which science takes as the ground of its analysis. — Wayfarer

Different starting points: a materialist is seeking to make sense of the world at large, a world that we've mostly learned about through science. You accept that there's an external world, and that science has provided some true information about it; the physicalist metaphysics just proposes a metaphysical framework for this what we know. It seems quite successful at this. However, when extending the model to the minds, there's some problems.

Your starting point seems to be the mind itself. It appears the metaphysics of mind is what you consider of paramount importance. You focus on the deficiencies of physicalism at accounting for the mind, and it seems you therefore dismiss physicalist metaphysics because it inadequately accounts for your area of focus. From my point of view, this is throwing the baby out with the bathwater: you have no general metaphysical framework for accounting for the world at large - despite the fact that you accept the existence of the external world and that science give us some true information about it (in the vein for structural realism). You seem uninterested in such an overall metaphysical framework, whereas that is what I'm most interested in.

I'm not a committed physicalist, but I do think physicalism is the best explanation for the available facts of the world - among metaphysical systems. That doesn't means it can answer every question, but it answer more than others.

But we’re not talking about science. We’re discussing philosophy, which is crucially concerned with the human condition, with questions of meaning. — Wayfarer

YOU aren't talking about science, and it's account of the natural world, but I am. The expanse of human existence is a speck in this vast, old universe.

The human condition is worthwhile and interesting to contemplate, and we probably agree that physicalism is a poor vehicle for doing so. But similarly, from what I've seen of idealism, it seems a poor vehicle for understanding the world at large.

here’s no conflict between idealism and science: the conflict is between idealism and scientific materialism, — Wayfarer

Much of what I've seen written in this thread suggest there IS a conflict between idealism and science - the disconnect between the perceive world and the actual world. I guess there are varying degrees. The title of the thread suggests a high degree of skepticism about the external world.

I say that part of this world-model is 'the self in the world'. We see ourselves as individual subjects in a domain of other subjects, as well as impersonal objects and forces. But that too is a model, indeed the dominant model in scientific-secular culture. But philosophy demands us to look deeper, to understand the way that even such an obvious and common-sense view is itself a construct. — Wayfarer

Agreed: it's a construct and a model. But does the model reflect reality, at least in part? The model formation process does not entail falsehood. If it's a product of natural forces (however one describes this: no necessarily physicalist), I think congruence with reality is likely. If the product of something outside the scope of natural, something with intentionality, why would it produce a false model?


Is there an alternative- with equivalent explanatory power? Most of what I'm seeing, including the above quote, is providing a reason why it might be false. And I raise my objection again: mere possibility is not a defeater.

I say that part of this world-model is 'the self in the world'. We see ourselves as individual subjects in a domain of other subjects, as well as impersonal objects and forces. But that too is a model, indeed the dominant model in scientific-secular culture. But philosophy demands us to look deeper, to understand the way that even such an obvious and common-sense view is itself a construct. — Wayfarer

Agreed: it's a construct and a model. But does the model reflect truth, at least in part? Is its truth not possible? Unlikely? Untrustworthy?
Is there an alternative- with equivalent explanatory power? Most of whay I'm seeing, including the above quote, is providing a reason why it might be false. And I raise my objection again: mere possibility is not a defeater.

I think there's something more basic in us that is pre-verbal. — Relativist

Oh absolutely. Couldn’t be otherwise. In my opinion, that is.

YOU aren't talking about science, and it's account of the natural world, but I am. — Relativist

Yes, but this is a philosophy forum and that is my area of interest. Science - or natural philosophy - has a more limited scope than philosophy proper as philosophy is also concerned with ethics, epistemology and the meaning of existence. There are philosophical questions that will always remain open and learning to be open to them is part of the endeavour. Believing that the methods of science can be applied to the questions of philosophy is what is described as ‘scientism’.

You focus on the deficiencies of physicalism at accounting for the mind, and it seems you therefore dismiss physicalist metaphysics because it inadequately accounts for your area of focus. — Relativist

My area of focus is philosophy, as I’ve outlined above. The problem with physicalism is that it begins with exclusions and abstractions. Classical physics, for example, began by focusing on the movement of bodies, later expanding with the discovery of electromagnetism to include the broader domain of matter-energy.

But physics, as a method, brackets out questions of meaning. Its power lies in its ability to isolate variables and describe systems independently of context, which is why classical (pre-quantum) physics could achieve such precision. Yet among the factors it deliberately excludes is the nature of the observer—the mind that frames, measures, and interprets what is observed. That bifurcation of mind and world is central to this entire debate, and I suggest you're not grasping its implications. Physicalism can't find any mind in the world it studies, because it begins by excluding it, and then tries to patch it back in as a 'result' or 'consequence' of the mindless interactions which are its subject matter and from which it seeks to explain everything about life and mind.

This exclusion could not be sustained in quantum physics, where the so-called observer problem brought the role of measurement and observation back into focus. Since then, physics has no longer provided the idealized model of mind-independent reality that reigned from Newton to Einstein. Yet that outdated model still holds considerable sway over culture.

As to whether I advocate a metaphysics, it’s a notoriously difficult subject. The term properly belongs to the Aristotelian tradition in which it originated, which has its own lexicon and scope and in which I am not highly educated (while suspecting that there is considerably more of value in it than we nowadays allow). I say that because the word is often used dismissively, along the lines of positivism, regarding any ideas which can’t be validated scientifically ('oh, that's just metaphysics'). So it need to be used carefully. The Kantian insight into the way the mind constructs the world also fundamentally changed metaphysics. I've also been influenced by the study of Buddhism, which eschews speculative metaphysics and emphasises direct awareness of the world-constructing activities of mind ('vikalpa'). In general terms, I'm inclined to the view that the cosmos goes through periods of creation and destruction over vast aeons of time and that this is the background against which these questions are explored. I don't see anything 'anti-scientific' in that (it is similar to Penrose cyclic cosmology.)

As to whether the mind-created world 'reflects' reality, notice the implication - the mind here, internal, and the world, there, external (the 'mirror of the world' paradigm of Richard Rorty.) Obviously scientific powers have vastly expanded our grasp of the natural world - there's no contest regarding that point. But questions of meaning still elude us, all the same. One could be a world-conquering scientific technologist and entreprenuer, and yet still casually destroy programs that provide aid and sustenance to millions of the world's poor, while saying that empathy is a fundamental weakness. If philosophy is indeed the love of wisdom, then such actions certainly denote its lack.

Believing that the methods of science can be applied to the questions of philosophy is what is described as ‘scientism’. — Wayfarer

Yes, but I'm not doing that. Metaphysical naturalism (MN) provides a metaphysical context for what we know about the world. Of course, any metaphysical theory should be consistent with what we know, but the strength of naturalism is that it depends the fewest assumptions. The basic assumptions of MN are not derived scientifically (as scientism would require)- they are a product of conceptual analysis - just like any other metaphysical system must do.

My area of focus is philosophy, as I’ve outlined above. The problem with physicalism is that it begins with exclusions and abstractions. — Wayfarer

Indeed, we have different areas of focus. Mine is to seek to understand reality as a whole. I have not suggested your approach is wrong.
Physicalism doesn't exclude anything we know about the world. It "excludes" some past metaphysical assumptions - hypotheses, not established facts, but provides alternative hypotheses.

But physics... brackets out questions of meaning. Its power lies in its ability to isolate variables and describe systems independently of context... excludes is the nature of the observer — Wayfarer

Don't conflate physics with MN, or physicalism. Physics, as a discipline, does not entail the study of biological organisms, much less the way the brain and mind work.

Physicalism can't find any mind in the world it studies, because it begins by excluding it, and then tries to patch it back in as a 'result' or 'consequence' of the mindless interactions which are its subject matter and from which it seeks to explain everything about life and mind.

I would characterize it differently. MN/physicalism provides a metaphysical framework for explaining what we know about the world- the relatively secure knowledge that science provides. It subsequently applies the model to the mind. It succeeds to a degree, but it certainly has some explanatory gaps. The methodology and framework are not suitable for examining the philosophical issues most important to you. Its unsuitability is not a falsification, anymore than does the meteorological study of hurricanes falsify fluid dynamics or quantum field theory.

This exclusion could not be sustained in quantum physics, where the so-called observer problem brought the role of measurement and observation back into focus. Since then, physics has no longer provided the idealized model of mind-independent reality — Wayfarer

That's simply not true. That was a claim some made, based on a basic Copenhagen interpretation. Most today would say that an observation is just one example of an entanglement, and that the entanglement results in a collapse of the wave function (some claim there's no collapse at all, but a world branching - but that's too unparsimonious for me).

As to whether I advocate a metaphysics... — Wayfarer

Fair enough, but bear in mind that I do advocate a metaphysics - defined as "In the rationalist tradition, [in which] metaphysics was seen to be an inquiry conducted by pure reason into the nature of an underlying reality that is beyond perception," (from the Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy article on "metaphysics"). As I've said, I'm not a committed physicalist - in that I do not have faith that everything is necessarily reducible to the physical. But I consider it a default assumption because of its parsimonous ontology. Some of the most appealing aspects are: its denial of essentialism, its dispensing with a "third realm" to account for the supposed existence of abstractions, the account of laws of nature, and truthmaker theory of truth. I am interested in knowing the limits of its explanatory scope (e.g. it doesn't seem possible to explain qualia), and for that reason - I like to explore the various issues with theory of mind.

I appreciate your thoughtful engagement throughout this exchange, and I recognize that my arguments are unlikely to shift your position. But I would like to make one further observation.

While you distance metaphysical naturalism from scientism, it seems to me that in practice it tends to rely on scientific findings as the principal arbiter of philosophical questions—especially when appealing to parsimony to set aside questions that science cannot easily address. You acknowledge that physicalism has significant explanatory gaps when it comes to the philosophy of mind—gaps that figures like D. M. Armstrong would argue have already been closed. Yet despite recognizing these limitations, you seem prepared to treat the framework as the best available by default. 'Hey, it's a great car! Don't let the fact it doesn't steer bother you! Look at the panel work!'

That strikes me as an unresolved tension: relying on science to ground metaphysics when it appears fruitful, but retreating to a more minimal philosophical stance when its limits are acknowledged. I think that’s a structural challenge for naturalism as a philosophical position.

Furthermore, I would question whether the definition you cite from the Blackwell Dictionary straightforwardly supports metaphysical naturalism per se. Framing metaphysics as “an inquiry by pure reason into a reality beyond perception” seems to align more with rationalist or even idealist traditions than with a naturalism grounded in empirical science. I suspect that if the full entry were consulted, it would acknowledge a broader range of metaphysical approaches—some of which explicitly challenge naturalism’s reliance on empiricism and its rejection of any such ‘beyond.’

But, thanks again, we should let the thread owner get a word in.

This exclusion could not be sustained in quantum physics, where the so-called observer problem brought the role of measurement and observation back into focus. Since then, physics has no longer provided the idealized model of mind-independent reality
— Wayfarer

That's simply not true. That was a claim some made, based on a basic Copenhagen interpretation. Most today would say that an observation is just one example of an entanglement, and that the entanglement results in a collapse of the wave function (some claim there's no collapse at all, but a world branching - but that's too unparsimonious for me). — Relativist

Actually I do have to circle back to this. The point at issue was the supposed mind-independence of the objects of classical physics. That is made explicit in Galileo's philosophy of science by the division of the 'primary attributes' (measurable) and 'secondary attributes (sensory).

Furthermore that the laws of physics were understood to be universal and not dependent on the context in which they were applied, operating deterministically in accordance with the mathematical principles discovered by Galileo and Newton (et al).

But with the discoveries of quantum physics, it was found that the experimental context had to be taken into account, because it has a direct bearing on outcome of the observation. One example is the wave-particle duality identified by Neils Bohr, which he called the 'principle of complementarity' and regarded as his most important philosophical discovery.

As for the 'measurement problem', that has never really been resolved to unanimous agreement. The reason for the so-called many worlds theory is precisely because it does away with the so-called 'wave function collapse' - but at the cost of infinitely proliferating worlds.

My interpretation of all this is that the 'modern period' corresponds with the period between the publication of Newton's Principia Mathematica (1687) and theFifth Solvay Conference (1927) when the main tenets of quantum mechanics were first made public. The modern period corresponds with the heyday of strong scientific realism. I'm of the view that the Solvay Conference marks the beginning of the post-modern period which appeared to undermine the mind-independent nature of reality (and in a much wider sense than in physics alone). This development was why Einstein felt obliged to ask the rhetorical question, 'Does the moon continue to exist when nobody is looking?' His answer to that question would be an emphatic 'yes'. But the point was, he had to ask! And subsequent science has not been kind to Einstein's scientific realist convictions.

That’s the sense in which I believe quantum theory undermines the assumption of scientific realism—an assumption that, I think, underwrites the metaphysical naturalism you’re defending.

While you distance metaphysical naturalism from scientism, it seems to me that in practice it tends to rely on scientific findings as the principal arbiter of philosophical questions—especially when appealing to parsimony to set aside questions that science cannot easily address — Wayfarer

Science relies on abductive reasoning , which is a general epistemological approach- not exclusive to science. It's explicitly used by historians, and it is the most common form of rational reasoning we engage in every day (the most obvious problem with conspiracy theories is the failure to consider all available data). There's more to abduction than parsimony, but why should it not be a factor?

Any viable metaphysical theory would need to be consistent with all known facts. Science provides a set of facts, so of course it needs to be consistent with these facts - as well as any other facts. Are there non-scientific facts being overlooked? That would certainly be problematic. But 2000 year old philosophical frameworks (e.g. 4-causes; teleology; essentialism...)are not facts, they are alternative theories to be judged against.

you seem prepared to treat the framework as the best available by default. 'Hey, it's a great car! Don't let the fact it doesn't steer bother you! Look at the panel work!' — Wayfarer

I'm open to a better framework. You haven't provided one, and indicated it's outside the scope of your interest. But you exaggerate the problems, it seems to me, because none of the problems truly falsify physicalism. Qualia are a problem, but can be rationalized as illusions. Is there a better, comprehensive explanation that is non-physical? Is there a true defeater- something that unequivocally falsifies physicalism?

That strikes me as an unresolved tension: relying on science to ground metaphysics when it appears fruitful, but retreating to a more minimal philosophical stance when its limits are acknowledged. I think that’s a structural challenge for naturalism.

as a philosophical position. — Wayfarer

I repeat: a complete metaphysics needs to be consistent with all available facts. Consider how absurd it would be to dismiss a well-supported scientific theory on the basis that it's inconsistent with some prior philosophical commitments (have you ever debated a creationist?) Again: what unequivocal facts are inconsistent with, and thus falsify, physicalism? Explanatory challenges are not defeaters, but they could be taken into account in the abductive reasoning.

I would question whether the definition you cite from the Blackwell Dictionary straightforwardly supports metaphysical naturalism per se. Framing metaphysics as “an inquiry by pure reason into a reality beyond perception” seems to align more with rationalist or even idealist traditions than with a naturalism grounded in empirical science — Wayfarer

There's multiple definitions of the term; I just sought a definition consistent with the scope of inquiry I had in mind to describe what I'm interested in, in contrast to your interests.

The point at issue was the supposed mind-independence of the objects of classical physics. — Wayfarer

Of course I believe objects exist independent of minds- and I've discussed that this seems rooted in innate, non-verbal basic beliefs. Do you truly not believe mind-independent objects? If so, why do you believe that?

Furthermore that the laws of physics were understood to be universal and not dependent on the context in which they were applied, operating deterministically in accordance with the mathematical principles discovered by Galileo and Newton (et al). — Wayfarer

I see no reason to think the most fundamental laws of nature are context dependent. When we notice a context dependency in a law of physics, it implies there's deeper law than the physics law. E.g. Newton's law of Gravity is true only within a certain context, whereas General Relativity is the deeper law.

That’s the sense in which I believe quantum theory undermines the assumption of scientific realism—an assumption that, I think, underwrites the metaphysical naturalism you’re defending. — Wayfarer

It doesn't do that, in the least.

the point was, he had to ask! — Wayfarer

I believe he asked because, at the time, the so-called observer problem was being debated.

Werner Heisenberg: "Of course the introduction of the observer must not be misunderstood to imply that some kind of subjective features are to be brought into the description of nature. The observer has, rather, only the function of registering decisions, i.e., processes in space and time, and it does not matter whether the observer is an apparatus or a human being; but the registration, i.e., the transition from the "possible" to the "actual," is absolutely necessary here and cannot be omitted from the interpretation of quantum theory."

John Bell: "Was the wave function waiting to jump for thousands of millions of years until a single-celled living creature appeared? Or did it have to wait a little longer for some highly qualified measurer - with a PhD?"

You haven't provided one, and indicated it's outside the scope of your interest — Relativist

I think I have provided one, but that you're not interested in it, or think that it's absurd, for calling into question what you think is obvious. Again, philosophy is 'love-wisdom', not an inventory of things that exist in the world, or methods of harnessing nature to our advantage. It is not necessarily in conflict with those activities, but it is also not defined in their terms. Plato thought that the principle task of the philosopher was to prepare themselves for their inevitable death. Has that been superseded by scientific progress? (I'm not referring here to such scientific fantasies as cryogenetics.)

Consider how absurd it would be to dismiss a well-supported scientific theory on the basis that it's inconsistent with some prior philosophical commitments (have you ever debated a creationist?) Again: what unequivocal facts are inconsistent with, and thus falsify, physicalism? Explanatory challenges are not defeaters, but they could be taken into account in the abductive reasoning. — Relativist

Physicalism is not a falsifiable hypothesis. It's a philosophical view of the nature of reality. The central problem with physicalism is, as Schopenhauer says, that it seeks to explain what is the most immediately apparent fact, namely, the fact of one's own conscious experience, in terms of a hypothetical substance namely matter, the real nature of which is conjectural and uncertain. As we've discussed, and you acnowledge, physicalism doesn't and probably cannot explain the nature of mind or consciousness, yet when we come to this point, that inconvenient fact is disregarded.

Do you truly not believe mind-independent objects? If so, why do you believe that? — Relativist

This is presented in the OP The Mind Created World, a précis of the first half being as follows.

That post defends a perspectival form of philosophical idealism, arguing that mind is foundational to reality—not in the sense that the world is “in” the mind, nor that mind is a kind of substance, but that any claim about reality is necessarily shaped by mental processes of judgment, perception, and understanding.

Contrary to the dominant assumptions of physicalism and metaphysical naturalism, which treat the physical world as ontologically basic and knowable through objective science, this essay argues that all knowledge of the world is always already structured by the perspective of a subject. This does not mean denying the empirical reality of a world independent of any particular mind, but rather recognizing that mind is the condition of the intelligibility of any objective claim.

I pose a thought experiment involving an alpine meadow to demonstrate that a scene without perspective is unintelligible and that, therefore, perspective is not incidental but constitutive of reality-as-known. Drawing on phenomenology and non-dualism, the argument is made that 'existence' and 'non-existence' are not a simple binaries, and that treating unperceived objects as straightforwardly existent (or non-existent) misconstrues the nature of experential knowledge.

The essay does not reject science or evolutionary accounts of the cosmos. Rather, it questions the default metaphysical assumption that objectivity is the sole criterion of reality. Instead, it contends that the world as known arises through the unifying activity of consciousness, which science has yet to fully explain and indeed generally tends to ignore.

Ultimately, the essay argues that philosophical (or transcendental) idealism, rightly understood, does not negate the reality of an external world, but sees it as inseparable from the conditions of its being known. What is called 'reality' is not merely physical, but always shaped by mind. So, therefore, mind is truly a fundamental constituent of what we understand as reality, but in a transcendental rather than objective sense.

Mind independence is true on an empirical level as a definite matter of fact. But the problem with methodological naturalism, is that it wishes to extend mind independence to reality as a whole, to make a metaphysic out of it. It tries to make a metaphysical principle out of empirical methodology. (Recommend Bas van Fraasen on this.)

That’s the sense in which I believe quantum theory undermines the assumption of scientific realism—an assumption that, I think, underwrites the metaphysical naturalism you’re defending.
— Wayfarer

It doesn't do that, in the least. — Relativist

Of course it does! As you've mentioned John Bell, another quote of his:

The discomfort that I feel is associated with the fact that the observed perfect quantum correlations seem to demand something like the "genetic" hypothesis. For me, it is so reasonable to assume that the photons in those experiments carry with them programs, which have been correlated in advance, telling them how to behave. This is so rational that I think that when Einstein saw that, and the others refused to see it, he was the rational man. The other people, although history has justified them, were burying their heads in the sand. I feel that Einstein's intellectual superiority over Bohr, in this instance, was enormous; a vast gulf between the man who saw clearly what was needed, and the obscurantist. So for me, it is a pity that Einstein's idea doesn't work. The reasonable thing just doesn't work. — John Bell, quoted in Quantum Profiles, by Jeremy Bernstein (Princeton University Press, 1991, p. 84)

Those 'correlations' were the subject of the 2022 Nobel Prize, awarded to Alain Aspect, John Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger, which underscored a pivotal shift in our understanding of reality. Their experiments with entangled photons violated Bell inequalities, challenging the classical notions of local realism, the idea that objects possess definite properties independent of observation and that no influence can travel faster than light (source).

As noted in the Nobel Committee's award statement, their findings suggest that "quantum mechanics cannot be replaced by any local hidden-variable theory," implying that the properties of particles are not predetermined but are defined only upon measurement.

So, question: doesn’t the idea that particles lack definite properties prior to observation strike at the very core of ‘mind-independence’? And wasn't this one of the reasons why Albert Einstein (and now Roger Penrose) are highly critical of quantum theory, saying it must be incomplete or incorrect? And yet these very awards affirm the success of a theory that defies classical assumptions about the mind-independent nature of reality.

mind is foundational to reality—not in the sense that the world is “in” the mind, nor that mind is a kind of substance, but that any claim about reality is necessarily shaped by mental processes of judgment, perception, and understanding. — Wayfarer

The trouble is that the first statement I've bolded is a stronger claim than the second, whereas you're implying that they say the same thing. Is it the claims about reality (our knowledge) that are shaped by the subject, or reality?

It always feels like you want to be a full-on metaphysical idealist but can't quite bring yourself to do it. :wink:

I'm quite lazily picking an easy target here, but I couldn't resist.

It always feels like you want to be a full-on metaphysical idealist but can't quite bring yourself to do it. — Jamal

Epistemic idealism - what we know is shaped by how we know. And empirical realist - not saying that the world is all in the mind. But that it has an ineliminably subjective pole, which we're not aware of unless we teach ourselves to be.

OK, sticking with Kant then. Fair enough. But do you agree it's important to make the distinction I made, or do you stand by the conflation of epistemic and metaphysical idealism? Note that I'm not saying that the conflation is necessarily devastating.

EDIT: In fact, blurring that dichotomy might be the way to go.

I’m not inclined towards any kind of philosophy that tries to treat mind (or consciousness) as something objective. Of course the functions of consciousness can be studied objectively through cognitive science, but its real nature is another matter. That’s why I’m not inclined to use expressions like ‘cosmic mind’ or the like. To me, the unknown nature of mind itself is very important to always recall (instead of believing that it has been or can be ‘explained’ by scientific principles.)

And yet, more often than not you appeal to empirical cognitive faculties rather than transcendental ones.

But I'm being pedantic now. Carry on!

And yet, more often than not you appeal to empirical cognitive faculties — Jamal

‘Play something we can dance to!’ :rofl:

Ha, that's what I thought :grin:

…..blurring that dichotomy might be the way to go. — Jamal

Personally, I’d be inclined to do that, in that for Kant, sensuous physiology is foundational to reality, while, as you say, human intelligence, by whatever name one wishes to identify it, necessarily shapes that given reality, by the empirical faculties prescribed as belonging to it.

As an aside, I’d contribute that for mere discussion of presupposed existential reality and experiential shapes thereof, there is no conscious need of transcendental faculties, the discursive empirical cognitive faculties sufficient in themselves for it. Pure a priori, that is to say, transcendental, cognitions being already manifest in a subject’s antecedent construction of conceptual relations contained in his part of the discussion.

Everybody dances to the empirical tune of the senses; whether they care whether they look silly or not to the crowd they’re doing it with…..that’s determined by their transcendental self-awareness.

As an aside, I’d contribute that for mere discussion of presupposed existential reality and experiential shapes thereof, there is no conscious need of transcendental faculties, the discursive empirical cognitive faculties sufficient in themselves for it. Pure a priori, that is to say, transcendental, cognitions being already manifest in a subject’s antecedent construction of conceptual relations contained in his part of the discussion. — Mww

Seems like a weak kind of Kantianism. If you're not reducing the a priori to the empirical, why not go straight for the former?